French candidate trips on gaffes

December 06, 2006|By New York Times News Service.

PARIS — The Middle East can be a dangerous place for the diplomatic neophyte.

So perhaps it was inevitable that Segolene Royal, the Socialist nominee in April's presidential election, would stumble when she ventured to the region on her first foreign trip since she was chosen as her party's candidate two weeks ago.

The five-day trip to Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and Israel was intended to counter criticism even within her own party that she lacks foreign policy experience. Instead, she opened herself up to a new wave of criticism from the French right that she has a long way to go to prove her credentials in foreign affairs.

There were gaffes early in the visit when she met with Lebanese parliamentary deputies, among them Ali Ammar, a member of the pro-Syrian, Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

"The Nazism that has spilt our blood and usurped our independence and our sovereignty is no less evil than the Nazi occupation of France," Ammar reportedly told Royal. He also attacked the "unlimited dementia of the American administration" and called Israel the "Zionist entity."

Royal replied that she agreed "with a lot of things that you have said, notably your analysis of the United States."

Questioned by journalists about her criticism of the United States, she clarified her position, saying she had only meant to be critical of U.S. policy in Iraq, not the "the wider policies of the United States."

Asked a day later about the Nazi remark, she said she had not heard it, saying it was a problem of interpretation. "If that comparison had been made, we would have left the room," she said.